June 01, 2013

East Asia Mission: 26B - Lama Temple in Photos

As I shared in a prior blog, when we were in Beijing, we visited the Lama Temple. Below are several photos of the temple that I took off the Lama Temple's website. These photos are better than mine, and besides, I had such a deep communion with Sananda-Buddha while we were there that basically I forgot to take many photos. (Due to some computer confusion, I used large files for posting these images, so this blog may have taken longer than usual to come up.)

This is the entrance to the temple. Inside you see the first santuary or pavillion or prayer place, in which there are 3 Buddhas, one basically behind each of the arched openings. As tourists, you cannot take photos of the inside of these temples, in part because devotees are praying and going through their rituals there.

Above, you see one of the devotees kneeling and bowing down his/her head. In front of this devotee, after praying and bowing and such, you put your lighted incense in the rectangular container in front of the praying/bowing place. Then, you go into the temple (to the right in the photo) and repeat the same process in front ot the middle of the 3 Buddha statues. Only you do not light the incense.

Inside the above temple, and a couple of the otherss, we saw beautiful Buddha statues. Below is a picture of just the head of one of these statutes.

Here's a closer-up view of three women praying on their knees, holding llighted incense sticks. Notice that these are young women. Many young men also went through this whole devotional process as well. In the first 2-3 pavillions, such devotees only had 3 lighted incense sticks, one for each of the 3 Buddhas. It looks like this above photo is for the last of the 5 buildings, in which a huge statue of the Buddha of the future, the so-called Maitreya Buddha, is housed. This last Buddha is three stories high, was carved from one sandalwood tree, and is totally impressive. You cannot capture this in a photo, but I will show one anyway, below this.

In Tibetan Buddhist teachings, the next Buddha, who is to incarnate some 5,000 years or so after Gautama the Buddha, will be called Maitreya. From Nada-Yolanda's intunements and channelings, as well as my own communions with Lord Maitreya, we understand that Maitreya actually is Sananda-Gautama the Buddha's master teacher. Maitreya is co-titular head of the Hierarchal Board or governing body of the entire solar system.

There is no telling how the story of the future Buddha being called Maitreya came into being. It would seem reasonable that Gautama the Buddha, in his lifetime, had communion with him, since Maitreya is his master teacher. However, there is no mention of Maitreya in Buddhist texts until several hundred years after Gautama the Buddha's incarnation. By then, perhaps, Gautama the Buddha's own teachings about Maitreya may have gotten distorted.

Before going to the Lame Temple, I had no idea that there would be a statue of Maitreya in it. Seeing this huge state, I reflected on the numerous contacts I had had with Maitreya prior to coming to East Asia and since being here. Like my earlier communion with Sananda-Buddha at this temple, I also felt in communion with Maitreya when I was before this statue. This towering statute is symbolic of how powerful and spiritually evolved Maitreya is. In my communions with him, often I feel nearly overwhelmed in his cosmic presence of Divine Peace and Love of the Seventh Ray. Thus, it was an unexpected treat and confirmation for me to see this depiction of him, regardless of the varying interpretations of who he is. I know who he is in my heart. This is what is most important to me and to all of us who love him and follow his cosmic guidance.